by Dark Angel
But I have to think about why I’m doing this. Why it matters more that I give up my self-worth. I'm doing this for my brother. He’s spiraled down as far as I can stand to see him go. The truth is, his drug and alcohol and gambling problems are already so out of control, I don’t know if there’s any further down he can fall. Me? I have almost nothing. In fact, all I have is him. So this is the sacrifice I make because my integrity matters less to me than my brother’s life. If I don’t save him, he'll die. And because I'm poor, and I have nothing but a dead-end diner job, and because I’m not sure what the hell else I want from life, I'm in the unique position of having just one thing to give.
I’m a virgin. I can give my virginity to one of the most notoriously ruthless, cutthroat casino owners that my brother owes the most money to. Giancarlo Sandoval is a notorious womanizer if the rumors are to be believed. I hope they are, because I’m hanging all my hope on it. The tang of fear is sliding down my throat with the chemical sweetness of lipstick further turning my stomach.
Rapping my fingernails nervously on the old wood of my vanity table one last time, I take a final look at myself in the mirror's reflection. I hope that I’ve done a good enough job with this makeup, and with this outfit, to catch his eye and make him consider my offer.
If I knew better what men wanted, I might not still be a virgin. The truth is I’ve never taken a real interest in men, in sex, or even in makeup or looking all that attractive.
Trying to help my brother has consumed the last seven years of my life, and now it has come to this. I’m staring at my too-pale face in the mirror, eyes ringed with more eyeliner and eyeshadow than it has seen in all the previous years of my life combined. A blazing red lipstick coats my lips with a luster that says ‘pay attention to me’ when all I’ve been content to do in the past was to go unnoticed. I smack my lips together, then make a kissy pout to the mirror.
I think I look exactly like someone trying to look desirable. I hope that reads well when Giancarlo sees me. I want to look the right amount of desperate, so that he’ll know I’m really willing to go this far. Hopefully, he’ll keep his word if I get him to entertain my offer.
I run my fingers through my hair one more time, tousling it so that I know it looks as good as it possibly can. I have my hair down in cascading auburn waves, the ringlets actually framing my face instead of being in their usual ponytail.
Looking over my reflection as if I’m looking at someone else, the hollow smile I spread over my face is as empty as I feel. Standing, I think about how I need to be strong. The time to be disgusted by my plan is ending now. Now I’m walking out of my apartment, and into Giancarlo Sandoval’s casino. Now, I’m the girl who’s going to try as hard as she can to strike a deal. I can’t be focusing on how badly I don’t want to do this.
The truth is that I don’t want to do this, but I also don’t want to suffer any of the consequences of not trying. I have nothing else to consider.
When I discovered my brother’s ledger, I was horrified by the story the numbers told. I saw the names, and after Googling for confirmation, I saw that all of these men owned casinos. I knew Tommy gambled. Tommy gambled, drank, slept with a ton of girls, and did whatever drugs came along for the ride. And he’d stopped working a long time ago. When he was doing well, he had tried to shower me with gifts. He bought me this vanity, telling me in one sober moment that he remembered our mother having one like it. But when things weren’t going well, he was scribbling in that ledger he kept in a small memo pad in his coat. His hair was too greasy and unkempt, and he stayed drunk, or high, or both. When he passed out in my bathroom, that ledger had fallen out of his pocket.
Circled so many times there was a hole in some parts of the pages where the tooth of the paper against the pen couldn't hold, and there was the name, Giancarlo Sandoval, and a number so large I gasped.
The numbers told me that he needed money. Well, that’s what they told me at first.
But the reality is that I need to prevent what the note written next to Giancarlo Sandoval’s name is forecasting.
‘Collecting or grave.’
Grave could only mean death. I have to do something about that. I can't let my brother get killed by some scummy whoring casino owner.
I have to stop the collection, which I know isn't going to be through angry phone calls or letters. It's going to be mobster shit, frankly, and I have to make some kind of deal.
My brother is my only family. I'll do anything for him. That's why I feel so conflicted. I know I'm going to do this. It's wrong, but because I need to save my brother—I'm the only one who can—I'm going to do something so wrong. For the right reasons.
Intention hardly matters. What matters is what I become. I'm going to offer my body to Giancarlo Sandoval. I'm a virgin, but I know brutish men look at women as a battle they get to conquer. I don't want to be a prize, a price, a payment.
I can't acquire money for my brother, but I can stop the collections. At least on this one major debt—a debt that can have such horrific consequences for my brother.
I walk out of my apartment, and when I hear the door close behind me, it isn’t like every other time I've left my apartment. It isn’t just the click of my heels on the tile outside of my unit. It's the metaphor in the sound of a slamming door that resonates with me.
People say that when life closes one door, another one opens. Well, I have no reason to believe that’s true unless I’m the one opening the doors. When my brother couldn’t take care of me, I used that chance to get a job at a diner. I used to think it would just be to afford school supplies, and clothes as I was still growing. But I’ve worked at J City’s Diner for the past five years now, and that’s just how it has to be.
Now I have to save my brother from getting his limbs chopped off by some mobster … and then I’ll figure out what to do next after that.
It's scary. I want to have a better plan. I do. But I have no idea what that plan is yet.
Those thoughts make me stop walking right here on the stairs, and I can’t breathe for a second.
But I think of my brother, and I know that if he's ruining his life, unable to stop making these terrible decisions, or get a hold of his addiction, then I'll get him free of at least his debts with the only currency I have. I work hard to be an independent woman, but in the end, it comes down to the fact that I'm still a woman. I need to use that rather than ignore it, because if Giancarlo accepts my virginity in exchange for my brother's debts at Giancarlo’s Wicked Paradise Casino, then I can turn this awful reality into something good. It just takes one vile act.
It's despicable to offer my body up for payment. An exchange of parting my thighs for a pardoning of a debt? I can’t keep gripping my steering wheel this hard because I'll squeeze it off. I hate to drive angry. Driving is supposed to be the calming activity that I do every day, and now, driving over to Wicked Paradise, I’m ready to explode with all the fury burbling in my belly.
I wonder if my brother fell apart one bad choice at a time.
Even if this leads to my own downward spiral, it's my choice to take this chance. I have to try and save my brother. He matters more to me than myself. I grip the steering wheel hard, this time because I’m parking and steeling myself for walking into the Wicked Paradise Casino. I breathe deep my last breath as a free woman.
Lucy
When I stroll inside the casino, it isn’t hard to find him. Some people like to be the center of attention, and that must be the case with Giancarlo Sandoval. I spot him instantly. Undeniably, that’s him.
That breathtaking jawline, those sharp features … he’s older, but age has done nothing to make him less attractive. I can’t imagine a younger version of him being any more attractive than he is now. He’s got a single gray streak in his dark, tousled hair that accentuates how sexy he is.
I have to take a moment to appreciate his face. Giancarlo is a wicked man, but his face is a thing of beauty. The lines on his face aren't etchings that mar,
they're character that adds to the carved-from-marble look he has. I bet his body, obviously fit beneath his suit, is just as David's Michelangelo. Really, his whole body is worth looking at an extra second or two.
Fuck, I'm trying to keep my cool, and I'm looking at his soulful, too-charming eyes, and his devious come-fuck-with-me-I-dare-ya grin.
I shouldn't be attracted to him. Mostly, he repulses me. So just looking at him now, in person and not the pictures of him online, I shouldn't be having this strong of a reaction to him just because he’s attractive. I’m not the kind of girl to care more about looks than anything else. Giancarlo may be attractive on the outside, but it's the inside that would — and should —count, and make me interested in him. The kind of man who would take me up on this offer—and there's no doubt that is the kind of man that Giancarlo is, which is not a man who I can be attracted to.
The concept of owning someone's virginity is disgusting. The idea that this is my only power as a woman because I have no money, no fancy job, and not even a completed nor fancy education, is despicable.
Right now, Giancarlo is a demon to me. Handsome and distracting and willing to take a piece of my soul … I hope. That’s not the sort of thought you have about a good man. That’s the sort of thought you’d expect to have about a man who owns a casino called Wicked Paradise. He looks devilishly good and he's oozing charm, but it's people like him who will do anything, take anything, and have anything, and that means we can't play by the nice rules of a pleasant society. He's good at being a shady bastard, but he's far from the only shady bastard. Men like him rule in every office, on every street, and on the board of every big company.
I'm a small person of no worth except that I have a pussy that hasn't been entered by a man.
So instead of bemoaning these facts, or begrudging his attractiveness, I have to stay focused.
Still, my mind wants to wander, stalling me so that it feels like my heels are literally dug into the plush carpet of the casino. As close as I’m standing, just a few tables away, I'm going to have to approach him soon anyway.
Scanning the room, I see women wearing outfits that resemble my own, except their outfits are several shades stronger than what I've attempted to pull off. Their heels are higher than mine. Their tops are cut much lower. Their makeup is more dramatic. I wonder if I’m doomed to fail because I didn’t quite dress the part. I can’t attribute this colossal failure on making myself up to not having a mother during my teenage years … I've completely avoided any dating whatsoever. It occurs to me that I’ve never found a man who I’ve wanted to fuck.
Looking at Giancarlo makes my stomach heat in a way that I’ve never felt before, and I don’t know what to think about that. Is my body trying to cope with this horrible ordeal I want to put it through? Even if an experienced lover like Giancarlo Sandoval takes my virginity, the mental toll of having sex with him is of course a frightening prospect.
I wonder why, then, I’m a little bit excited by the idea now. It must be because he’s attractive. But that’s so shallow! I think, as I’m watching him so intently now, it's because I recognize something in him. I recognize it because I feel it, too.
Giancarlo Sandoval looks like he wants to be absolutely anywhere but in Wicked Paradise. Oh, I can agree.
I wonder why he feels that …
But I don’t want to think about that. Making him human makes me more terrified. If he’s another person in my mind, then I have to fathom why he’d be willing to accept my offer. Yes, even though I want him to, it still isn’t pleasant.
I don't have to wonder why I've never met a man I wanted to fuck. I'm happy to be a virgin because I don't have the time or desire to deal with any of the fucked up things in this world.
The only man I love is my brother, Tommy, and he's falling apart in front of me. Other people I've had in my life—so-called friends—called me weak when I said that my brother just needed help. Because we have no family and I'm all he has left, I have to be stern with him. It's no excuse for his behavior. His gambling, alcohol, and drug addictions are the reasons behind his actions, but they don’t remove him from needing help. They don’t erase his humanity, as if him making those choices invalidate his right to being healthy and happy. Tommy’s just having a much harder time getting there, and he needs help. If I knew what to do to help him, I would've done it. I've tried so many fucking times to do just about anything that I can think of. My friends all fade away because they think I need to cut him from my life.
How can anyone be so callous?
So many people are ready to feel high and mighty above Tommy.
This is why I have a hard time connecting to people. I can’t relate to how shallow people can be, how completely devoid of empathy. Haven’t they ever loved someone so much that they’d love them unconditionally? Why is it so difficult for them to understand that when you love someone, you aren’t condoning all of their actions … you just love them regardless.
Well, I love Tommy unconditionally. I love him enough to do anything for him.
I love him enough to debase myself, because I don't think I'm better than him, or worth more. I'm taking the only thing I have to offer, offering it to this scummy prick Giancarlo, and I'm going to get my brother the help he needs and keep him from getting hurt.
The people who have all fallen out of my life because they already thought I should give up on Tommy, those people would judge me so much for this decision.
But I don’t feel wrong for my actions. I feel vindicated.
I'll sleep with this devil, and I’ll take the marks on my soul in exchange for saving Tommy, every step of the way that I can. And when Tommy’s well, then we'll never, ever, come near places like this or people like Giancarlo, ever again. I won't defile our lives like that. We’ll get far away from this nightmare city and live in some quiet town that gives us both a chance to start over.
After all, there are diners everywhere. I can get a new job. I can pack up and leave and find us a new place.
Tommy and I are the only family that we have. We have a right to be happy.
A few moments or hours of whatever unpleasant fate awaits me with Giancarlo is nothing compared to taking care of my brother and finally being able to see him smile again. A real smile on Tommy’s face, one that he means, one that he isn’t wearing just so that I’ll stop worrying … I’d do anything for Tommy to feel like he can smile again.
I feel the first smile I’ve had in a long time spread over my lips, despite the terror that sends a shiver through me. I watch the way Giancarlo’s hands grip his glass and I'm transfixed by it. I realize now, fear washing over me, that when Tommy is okay and doesn’t owe Giancarlo Sandoval … I have to find a way to make it look like I did anything else but fuck a casino owning gangster to erase one of Tommy’s debts.
I should have a better plan, but this is my only one. He owes Giancarlo Sandoval more than he owes anyone else, so I figured I should knock down this opponent before he does something to my brother. I'll worry about the rest and make more money, pull more shifts at the diner, and get him into a rehab facility so he can get help. One step at a time, I'm going to save us both.
This is the thing about having to play dirty. I don’t want to do it, but I can and I will do it in this fucked up world to make sure something good like my brother and my only family gets to exist, and not fade away because Tommy very well may disappear if I don’t do something. I can’t handle him dying. And I can't be bothered to care about what others might think of what I’m doing because I need to take care of my brother.
That includes that little voice in me that seems to get silenced when I stalk toward Giancarlo Sandoval. My mouth runs dry and I can’t believe I’m thinking about the size of those hands compared to various parts of my body. I’m thinking about what it might feel like if he touches me, and that’s so strange to me. I’ve never even fantasized about being with a man before. Now, the one man I've decided to sleep with, but who is also the last person I
think I’d want to sleep with … I’m picturing what it would feel like to try and catch my breath because he's on top of me. I can’t breathe now.
I want to clear this picture out of my mind.
But maybe I should focus on how attractive this pig is. The man who would hurt my brother somehow turns me on, wrong as that is. But I need this feeling.
I can use this feeling. Use this burning under my skin that makes my pulse speed up and play the role of the woman offering herself up to him even better than I could've imagined.
I need to make him want me and I'd be lying if I told myself I didn't want him. I do. How could I not? He's damned attractive! It's certainly a part of how he gets away with everything he does; Giancarlo Sandoval is an unholy amount of charming. His charm takes the sensible part of a person, and melts it down to their core. Seriously, it feels like someone dropped an ice cube in my panties. If they did, the heat looking at this man could melt it. My stomach still turns, and twists even further, but I find that I kind of like the way that I can’t feel myself in control. It's like my brain is just a little too hazy at the notion of him touching me. Talking to him.
I'm already wondering what his voice might sound like. I want to hear him say my name.
Use this desire to get what you want. Be just like him. That’s what I tell myself. I have to think this way, and be ruthless.
This is the only way to save Tommy from an impossible situation with an improbable plan.
Now that I'm actually doing the deal, standing right beside Giancarlo, I’m motivated to feel confident. I let myself get caught up in the moment, and now my thoughts are taking me down a winding road where I can barely see past the headlights of what's coming next on this messy road. I’m already hazy-minded with growing lust. But this sense of being less in control now, urges me to play this game with every drop of resolve that I have.